Framework for Designing and Evaluating Game Achievements Juho Hamari Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT, Aalto University HIIT, PO Box 19215 00076 Aalto, Finland +358 40 835 9563 [email protected] Veikko Eranti Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT, Aalto University / Department of Social Research, University Of Helsinki Sociology, P.O. Box 18 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland +358 50 369 5129 [email protected] ABSTRACT This paper presents a framework for evaluating and designing game design patterns commonly called as “achievements”. The results are based on empirical studies of a variety of popular achievement systems. The results, along with the framework for analyzing and designing achievements, present two definitions of game achievements. From the perspective of the achievement system, an achievement appears as a challenge consisting of a signifying element, rewards and completion logics whose fulfilment conditions are defined through events in other systems (usually games). From the perspective of a single game, an achievement appears as an optional challenge provided by a meta-game that is independent of a single game session and yields possible reward(s). Keywords Online games, game design, game achievements, game rewards, marketing, game ontology, motivation, gamification INTRODUCTION Despite the rapid diffusion of achievements, badges and trophies into a variety of digital games and services, the phenomena around them have gained relatively little academic attention. Some industry studies have found that games with achievements generate more revenue and receive better critical reception (EEDAR 2007). A powerful example of the adoption of achievements is Microsoft’s Xbox Live platform: all games published there are required to have achievements. Clearly there are benefits related to achievements. However, there are also potential problems. Game platform operators build up pressure for game developers to come up with achievements (even against their own will). This happens often when the game is already in post-production. Obviously, this can have an impact on the quality of the achievements for that particular game and further to the Proceedings of DiGRA 2011 Conference: Think Design Play. © 2011 Authors & Digital Games Research Association DiGRA. Personal and educational classroom use of this paper is allowed, commercial use requires specific permission from the author. whole gameplay experience (see e.g. Björk & Holopainen 2005 and Jakobsson 2011 on “grind achievements”). In addition to hastily designed achievements, some game designers (Carvalho 2009, Hecker 2010) have expressed justified doubts whether achievements, however well-made they be, actually obscure the core game experience and shift playing motives to ruthless achievement hunting. Hecker (2010), in his Game Developers Conference talk, specifically pointed to possible negative motivational effects stemming from game achievements. Literature on intrinsic motivation would indeed seem to doom expected extrinsic rewards as detrimental to intrinsic motivation, via diminishing the perceived autonomy of the individual to carry out given activities (see e.g. Deci, Koester & Ryan 1999 for a comprehensive meta- review of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards). The reduction in autonomy can lead to reductions in creativity and performance and can further diminishes the desirability of the given activity in the long run. However, it is not yet clear which kinds of achievements and rewards associated with them might be intrinsic or extrinsic and how they would affect the gameplay experience. Montola et al. (2009) applied achievements to a photo sharing application and found that users were concerned they would create unproductive usage patterns and confusion about the goals and rewards in the system. However, some users appreciated achievements and found them motivating. As Antin & Churchill (2011) also point out, the differences in attitudes towards achievements could be explained by the variance in achievement design. Badges and achievements as a game design pattern bear close resemblance to marketing tools, such as loyalty stamp cards, where people accumulate stamps or badges (see Nunes & Drèze 2006). As Hamari and Lehdonvirta (2010) note, many firms are in fact thinking marketing and customer relations more and more in gaming terms. From this perspective, achievement systems can also be seen as a part of the companies’ customer loyalty programs (see Hamari & Järvinen 2011, Huotari & Hamari 2011), add-on services that span through larger product portfolios creating lock-in effects (see e.g. Shapiro & Varian, 1999) to a family of products by awarding customers with product family specific points and rewards. This notion also could explain why studies have found achievements boosting game rating and revenues. This development of enhancing (non-game) services with game mechanics has also been referred to as “gamification” (Huotari & Hamari 2011, Deterding et al. 2011)1, which has been an increasingly growing trend during the last couple of years. Achievement features have been one of the most commonly implemented game design patterns in gamification. For example, Foursquare, which is regarded as one of the services that initiated the new wave of gamification2, is very much based on people unlocking badges by visiting a variety of “real world” locations. Foursquare has been often regarded as the blueprint of a service that gamifies other activities and therefore many of the concurrent gameful applications have also implemented achievements, which are used to direct player behaviour and decision making towards beneficial activities (Hamari 2011), that range from user retention (Hamari & Järvinen 2011) to greener energy consumption (see e.g. McGonical 2011). Therefore, the study of achievements and game mechanics in general seems to have a larger importance: their impact is not only limited to the realm of games. Before we can systematically analyze dynamics emerging from the interplay between achievements, games and services, we need to have an understanding from which -- 2 -- components achievement comprise of. The goal of this paper is to present a framework describing the mechanic-level structure3 of achievements. This paper, however, will not make further claims in the discussion about the effects of achievements to the gameplay experience. This paper proceeds as follows. In the next chapter we review previous definitions of achievements. The third chapter describes sources of data and cases explored in the study. Based on our observations, the fourth chapter outlines elements and components of an achievement. Based on the previous section, the fifth chapter summarizes the framework of an achievement and further develops a definition of an achievement based on the constructed framework. Finally the sixth chapter discusses implications and further research directions. PREVIOUS DEFINITIONS OF ACHIEVEMENTS AND ARRIVING TO A NEW ONE The name “achievement” has become somewhat of an industry standard due to big game platforms, such as Xbox Live and Steam adopted it. For example, “badges” and “trophies” are also commonly used in referring to the same game design pattern. Jakobsson (2011) traces the history of game achievements back 30 years to physical fabric patches that were sent to players who managed to prove their interesting feats by taking photographs of their television. Despite this, it has only during recent years become a common meta-game feature. According to Montola et al. (2009), achievements are optional sub-goals in a secondary reward system (achievement system). Björk (2011), in his continuing work on describing game design patterns, defines achievements as “goals whose fulfilment is stored outside the scope of individual game sessions”. Jakobsson (2011) sees achievements as quests in a system where players collect virtual rewards which are separated from the rest of the game. Common to the definitions is that achievements are in way or the other perceived as separate from the core game. Montola et al. (2009) imply the separateness by stating that the goals are optional in the sense they do not affect the progress of the player in the core system. Björk (2011) arrives to the separateness of the game and the achievement system via the pervasiveness of the achievement meta-game compared to the core games being played. Jakobsson (2011) sees achievement systems as reminiscent of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMO) and achievements in them as quests. However, the relationship between achievements and core game has not been elaborated further. We argue that seeing achievement as optional or secondary can be problematic. If a player is specifically attempting to accumulate all the available badges in the achievement system, then they are hardly neither optional nor secondary even if they would be optional in respect to the progress in the core game. From our view, this highlights an important point: achievement systems should be viewed as games of their own. Jakobsson (2011) also subscribes to this idea. This idea is elaborated further in the fifth chapter of this paper. However, these separate games clearly have some kind of a relationship. Microsoft (2011) in describing achievements to players (in Medler 2009) manages to capture an essential point about this relationship: “Achievements are game-defined goals that are stored and displayed in your gamer profile”. We suspect that the “game-defined goals” here means